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From: Jeremy Levine
Sent: Monday, May 20, 2024 3:26 PM
To: Amourence Lee <alee @cityofsanmateo.org>; Lisa Diaz Nash < [email protected]>; Richard Hedges <[email protected]>; Adam Loraine < [email protected]>; Housing < [email protected]>; Rob Newsom <[email protected]> Cc: Alex Khojikian <akhojikian@ cityofsanmateo.org>; Christina Horrisberger <[email protected]>; Rachel Horst <[email protected]>; Zachary Dahl <[email protected]>
Subject: Public comment on housing element adoption
Good afternoon Sam Mateo City Council members,
I am writing today to support the adoption of San Mateo's housing element. The housing element, including the associated General Plan update, represents years of hard work by San Mateo's community and city council.
Approving the housing element today is an important first step toward implementing several policies that will improve housing affordability in San Mateo. The most important policies HLC intends to support include:
• Program H1.2: Public Land for Affordable Housing
• Program H1.3: BMR Expansion to Increase Flexibility
• Program H1.6: Streamline Housing Production
• Program H1.7: Zoning Code Update for Affordable Housing • Program H1.20: General Plan Update
• Program H3.4: Strengthen Just Cause for Eviction Tenant Protections The policy changes to which San Mateo's housing element commits represent historic incremental change: Historic, because the city is doing more to promote housing affordability than it has in decades; incremental, because most policy changes reflect moderate, though meaningful, shifts relative to the status quo.
San Mateo's housing goals have more than tripled in the 6th RHNA cycle, and the city's housing element continues to assert that the city's rate of housing production could more than triple without any changes to existing zoning. As HLC has articulated in multiple past letters, we do not believe the city has demonstrated capacity to meet its production goals under existing zoning. As a result, San Mateo will likely fall behind on meeting its RHNA goals by the 2027 mid-cycle review, in which case San Mateo may need to make further revisions to its zoning rules and other development processes--regardless of whether the General Plan amendment passes. The city could have avoided this uncertainty by pursuing denser rezonings to address more constraints in a wider range of areas.
That said, we hope the city will be able to deliver on its housing goals regardless of new policy implementation. The currently proposed policy changes will help the city make significant progress on meeting the needs of the entire San Mateo community.
Thank you for your consideration,
Jeremy
Jeremy Levine (he • him)